


so much to say

by flysafepapi



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Rewriting Time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26453221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flysafepapi/pseuds/flysafepapi
Summary: He gets another chance to change things. He's not going to waste it.
Relationships: Michael Gray/Isaiah Jesus
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted from my tumblr of the same name.

It takes him a week or so to understand that this isn’t a bad dream, or some sort of fever dream he can’t break out of. A week of being too confused and cautious to come out of his room, still too raw and unsure to see anyone, even his parents, using the lingering affects of the sickness they tell him he had as an excuse to keep them as far away as possible. Just until he can figure out what the hell is going on. 

When he feels like he’s got more of a handle on the situation, or at least less insane, the first place he goes is around to see Finn. A part of him is hoping that it’s not just him, but that’s ruined when he walks into the betting shop, slowly, and everyone there looks exactly the same as he remembers, going about their days like their entire world hasn’t just been flipped around underneath them. 

What does he do now? He can’t tell anybody, they’d think he was losing his mind. 

He spends a lot of time thinking about whether or not he should act on the things he knows, wondering if changing anything will even make a difference in the end. He has to try, right? Too may people have been lost for him to stand by and watch it all happen the same way all over again. 

“What are you staring at me for? I got something on my face?”

“No, sorry, I just-”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. It’s too strange, looking into the face of someone that he knows to be dead, younger and less haunted than he remembers but still instantly recognisable. 

“Just daydreaming, I guess.”

John grins at him across the table, putting down the ledger he’d been checking over carefully, and Isaiah can’t not look at him. The last time he’d seen John had been at the funeral, right before they’d lit the fires and stood as the vardo burnt down to nothing, taking him with it. That was the last time he’d seen Esme, too, and the kids. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate.”

“Maybe.”

Looking around the room, at all the familiar faces that aren’t exactly innocent but still less aged like they’re all carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. It’s almost as strange as it had been to look in a mirror and see his own face staring back at him, but not the one he remembers having before he woke up wherever the hell he is right now. 

For the first few days, he’d thought that maybe he’d died, and this is his brain letting him relive everything over again, but already things have changed from how he remembers just because he’d done something different than he had the first time. What might happen if he does change things, let slip a little lie here and there to keep people from being in the wrong place at the wrong time? 

There’s only one way to find out. 

This time, he’s going to look after everyone. He’s not going to let any of it happen again.


	2. Chapter 2

For the last month, he’d been trying to get back into the routine of things, but it’s hard when everything he knew hasn’t even happened yet. Especially when everyone is so different, and there’s faces around that he hasn’t seen in years, either because they left or because they’re dead. Trying to figure out what he should change, and how he’s supposed to do it when he’s not as trusted as he was before he woke up years into the past. 

“You’re awake early. I don’t think you’ve been up before midday since you were ten.”

“I couldn’t sleep. Bad dreams.” 

Truthfully, it was trying to adjust to everything being just like he remembered but different in a dozen different, small ways, that kept him awake. He keeps track of them in a old book he hides in the bottom of his closet, carefully marking down what he remembers and how it’s different now. There’s never any drastic differences, just little things, probably the result of him doing things differently than he had the first time around, like intercepting Finn before he could take John’s gun to play with it down near the Cut. 

This is the first time he’s attempting to change something bigger, more vital. 

“Arthur!”

He’s been carefully counting down the days, watching to make sure he’s got his days right. When the clock hits three in the afternoon, he leaves Finn at the betting shop and goes to wait in the alley near the theatre, waiting for Arthur to walk along with a girl on each arm. Arthur looks annoyed, which is probably something he should have expected, but he’s pretty much desensitized to the glare, given everything else that’s happened. Except it hasn’t happened yet, not really, and if he has anything to say about it, it won’t. 

“What do you want, can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Tommy sent me to tell you that there’s a family meeting.”

His lie will be found out pretty quickly, he knows, as soon as Arthur makes it back to the house, but it means that Arthur won’t be in the theatre when Campbell goes looking for him. There will probably be repercussions for changing it later, but he figures he’ll deal with that when the time comes. Sure enough, five minutes after Arthur leaves to go back to the house, he watches from the shadows as Campbell’s men go into the theatre and come out empty handed and looking annoyed. 

The problem is, he can’t stop every instance where the man had cornered one of them, because he doesn’t know about all those times, only a few. Arthur’s beating, the brothel, Polly shooting him at the racetrack, he knows about those. Everything in between is going to be complete guesswork, and exhausting to attempt to catch. Especially when there’s always a thousand other threads that he’s got to keep track of, if he wants to stop anything. 

“You look a little too young to be in here.”

The Garrison has been a safe haven, of sorts, for the past few weeks. Being years into the past, back into his younger body, means that he can’t get a drink like he used to, but Harry knows him so he’s free to sit in the booth in the corner and relax. Well, it was, until the familiar woman walks through the door and looks right at him. Honestly, he’d forgotten about her in comparison to everything else. Now that he’s looking at her, though, he knows that he’s got to do something about it. He just doesn’t know what, yet.

“And you look a little too proper to be in here, Grace.”

Dropping her name, or any hint that he knows her, is probably a mistake this early. Tipping his hand too soon would probably come back to bite him eventually, but he can’t help it. No one had liked her, even him who tended to like most people. It was the fact that she was working for the cops, he figures. Past the boundaries of the BSA, no one willingly works with the police, and those that do are seen as the snitches they are. 

“How do you know my name?” She looks at him suspiciously, and the narrowing of her eyes looks ridiculous with the way she smiles at him, trying to act like she’s just a barmaid looking for work and not the catalyst for his boss losing both his mind and sight of who he really is. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”

“We haven’t, and if we had, it most definitely wouldn’t have been a pleasure. I’m going to go home, Harry, see you tomorrow.”

“Wait.”

She grabs his arm, stopping him, and he doesn’t snarl at her when he rips his arm out of her grasp but it’s a near thing. For all her beauty, all he can see is the manipulation she’d done, leaving and then coming back just when Tommy had made it big. That had pretty much made it obvious that she’d been lying since the beginning. If she’d truly cared, she wouldn’t have left at all. 

“Don’t fucking touch me.” He’s never killed a woman before, but this one, he just might. Apparently even now, she overestimates her own importance. That would be an easy way to take her out of the picture, but he can’t risk drawing attention to himself this early in the game. It’s like a giant game of chess, and he’s got to make all his moves strategically, thinking everything over before he makes a move. It’s a tempting thought, though. “Do you always grab underage boys?”

“No, I-”

“Bottle of rum, Harry.”

God damn it. Slowly, he turns around and meets Tommy’s stare head on, and watches his boss’s eyes slide past him to where Grace is standing, her eyes widening in recognition. Fuck. Why couldn’t he have just sent John or Arthur instead?


	3. Chapter 3

Apart from seeing people alive that hadn’t been, and hopefully would still be if he plays his cards right, the biggest thing he’d had to come to terms with was the loss of the relationship he’d been in for the last eight months. His first thought, when Tommy looks between him and Grace, is that word is going to spread and everything he’s worked for is going to disappear like smoke, before he remembers that in this go around, there’s nothing there to ruin. Not yet, anyway. 

That first week, after the realisation had sunk in and he’d realised that of course Michael wasn’t around yet, he’d thought about writing the address of the little farmhouse that his foster parents lived in, dragging him into all of this sooner, but he still wasn’t sure how much of a good idea that was. Honestly, he’d also thought about making sure Tommy never finds him in the first place, to keep him far away from all of this, but in the end he’s selfish and misses him too much.

There’s an awkward pause as everyone looks at each other. Tommy looks at him, then over to Grace, and Grace steps back from him and glances at Harry, unsure. Harry keeps his eyes firmly on the shelves of bottles, pretending that he has no idea what’s going on just three feet away from him. Smart man. 

“Tommy-”

“You should get home, Isaiah, I think your father’s been looking for you.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Before the doors close behind him, he can hear Grace say “That wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Grace, isn’t it? Why don’t you tell me what you think it looked like.”

Why couldn’t he have just send Arthur or John, even Charlie, and stayed away for a few more days? He can tell by the way that Tommy looks at Grace, like he’s not sure why she’s there but vaguely pleased that she is, that his job has just got a lot harder. Coming in between them wouldn’t work, not if he wanted to get himself beat six ways from Sunday for even thinking about it, but maybe he could divert Tommy’s attention in another direction, if he could think of a way to make him aware that she’s an informant, without giving himself away. 

Either way, he’s got to fix it somehow. For a while, just because he was considering all possibilities, he’d thought of just letting that one play out on it’s own, but he knows he’d never be able to take watching Tommy go through that slow decline all over again. He’d barely been able to watch it the first time. None of them could. 

In the future-that-never-was, Michael had taught him how to ride a horse, and even though he knows he’s still not the best at it, he knows enough to be able to ride the placid mare out of the city and along the familiar roads towards the Johnson home. When he’d made it to the Charlie’s yard and talked Curly into letting him take her for the night, Curly had looked at him curiously, and with a knowing look in his eye, and handed her over easily enough. 

By the time he gets there, the sun is already coming up in the sky and his legs ache from sitting for so long, but it’s nothing he can’t push through. The house is on the edge of town, and he heads in that direction, hoping that it’s late enough that everyone is already awake. Horses have always been more intuitive than people, Michael’s told him, knowing things without having to be told, so it’s not really a surprise when she starts slowing down when he reaches the familiar hedge, coming to a complete stop next to the yard where he can see two figures at the far end, crouched in a hen house. 

“Hey, you need any help?”

“I think she could use a rest, maybe some water. But I’m alright, don’t worry about me.”

He knows he’s staring, but he can’t help it. Michael looks young, younger than he ever remembers seeing him, and it’s kind of adorable. The instinct to grab him in a hug is just a strong, apparently not even being thrown back in the past could take that away from him, but he knows that it’d only freak him out. 

“There’s a creek just a little ways down the road, I could show you.”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“No, it’s fine, happy to help. I’m Henry.”

“Isaiah.”

Michael, still Henry because he hasn’t been drawn into all their shit yet, grins at him and leads him down the road, and the boy is so familiar and yet just different enough from the one that he fell in love with that it hurts, suddenly. He shouldn’t have come, should have stayed away. This isn’t his Michael, this is someone different, he has to remind himself, but it’s hard to remember when he’s face to face with him. 

“You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

“No, I’m from Birmingham.”

“Long way. Let me guess, runaway?”

“Why do you say that?”

“There’s no bags on the horse, so all you’ve got is what you’re wearing. Must have left in a hurry.”

He’s still got the same sharp eyes, which is a relief, in a way. There’s hints of his Michael in there, they’re just buried under all the Henry. 

“I’m looking for someone I haven’t seen in a long time, they don’t know I’m coming.”

“Not a lot of people around here that have left since the day they were born.”

“Maybe I’m just passing through.”

Michael looks at him like he knows that Isaiah is lying, but doesn’t call him out on it, and gestures over to the creek to the left. “Here we are.”

Isaiah leads the horse over to the water, ignoring the eyes he can feel on his back as he does, and busies himself with undoing the saddle from her back, giving her a bit of a break before he has to make the trip back. He hadn’t left word of where he was going, so his dad is probably worrying that something has happened to him by now, but he’ll explain that he just needed some time away when he gets back. 

“Do I know you? You look familiar, somehow.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hm. Maybe you just have one of those faces.”

Or maybe in six years, you’ll be in love with me, Isaiah thinks, but doesn’t say. Six years, and you’ll be worlds away from here, with everything that you could possibly want at your fingertips. Anyone would kill for the chance to be with you, to have just a taste of what you’ve got, and you’ll tell me that I’m the only one that’s ever been worth a damn. 

“Maybe.”


	4. Chapter 4

The reason why he’s here, and why he seems to be the only one, is still a mystery that he’s no closer to solving. Maybe it was the universe’s way of giving all of them a second chance, even if the rest of them don’t know it, or maybe he’s dead and this is his eternal punishment, doomed to relive the same years over and over no matter how many times he tries to change it. He’s stopped thinking about why and focused more on what he can do to make sure it doesn’t go the way he remembers. It’s hard, to act like everything is fine. Everywhere he looks, he sees death, and loss, and pain, in the faces of people he personally saw dead, and broken down.

He spends the rest of the day sitting on the grass near the creek, listening to Michael talk, painfully aware that this one isn’t his and still torn about it. The last time he’d seen his Michael, before he’d woken up in whatever this is, he’d been asleep next to him, wearing one of Isaiah’s shirts, and he looked perfect. Not that Michael isn’t perfect always, in his eyes anyway, but there’s something different about seeing him so relaxed and unaware of what waits for them outside the small bedroom. Isaiah knows that, regardless of the time, whether or not he does anything now or watches and waits for the day that Michael comes to him, that he’s playing with fire.

If he’d been born someone else, in a dozen different ways, he knows that no one would look twice at them together. You can’t change who you are, his dad had told him when he’d finally admitted that his tastes in people ran both ways, and you should never be ashamed of it, but sometimes, he is. Not ashamed, exactly, but aware that it’s never going to be accepted. If it’s not because they’re both male, it’s because Michael is white and he’s not, and people are always going to look down on him for the colour of his skin.

“This must be different, compared to the city. Quiet.”

“Sometimes the city gets a little too noisy. This is better.”

He doesn’t say that it’s because the city, as it is now, doesn’t have Michael in it. He shouldn’t even be here, because doing everything too fast is bound to backfire on him, but he couldn’t help himself. Even if the boy sitting beside him isn’t the man he remembers, not yet, he still looks exactly like him and just looking at him is calming. 

“If you’re not a runaway, then what brings you this far from home?”

Back in his own time, or the original time, whichever it is, he probably would have been back in their shared apartment by now, sitting and watching Michael trying to cook dinner without burning something, and Michael would frown at him whenever he laughed but it wouldn’t last long. It never did, when he crowds Michael against the wall, or the cupboards, and cups his face in his hands, holding him like he’s something precious. Years, it’d taken Michael to work past the trauma in his past and understand that Isaiah would sooner hurt himself than let anything happen to Michael. When he eventually managed it, those had been the greatest eight months of his life.

“I should be getting back. My father is probably worrying something’s happened to me.” Unlikely, his father is used to him staying at Finn’s house for days at a time by now, but the boy sitting next to him, his Michael but not his Michael, doesn’t need to know that. “Thanks, for spending the day with me.”

“Will I see you again?”

For a second, he’s tempted to tell him everything, about who he really is, and where he comes from, and that he doesn’t know it yet but compared to all the girls Isaiah’s ever been with, Michael is the only one he’s ever loved. He doesn’t. Instead, he shrugs, and says maybe.

Always maybe.

He kicks the mare into motion and doesn’t look back, until he’s at the end of the road. When he does, he sees Michael standing near the hedge around the house, watching him, and has to stop himself from turning back and never leaving again.


	5. Chapter 5

He’s pretty sure that Tommy thinks he’s got a crush on Grace, based on the way the man looks at him whenever he sees Isaiah sitting in the booth at the Garrison that’s quickly become his. It’s not the best way to go about this, but he also can’t tell the truth, so he lets Tommy make his own conclusions. What is he supposed to do, walk right up to him and say “In six years, I’m going to be dating the cousin you have no idea about yet?” 

It makes it more awkward, when he tells Tommy that he’s seen Grace at the gallery, talking to Campbell, like he’s been following her because of a juvenile crush and not because he’s trying to fix as much as he can. Tommy doesn’t have to say what he’s thinking, Isaiah can read it on his face, but he looks him dead in the eyes and says “When have I ever lied to you, especially about something this big?” He’s got Tommy there, and he knows it. It won’t be enough to get rid of her permanently, but it’ll start sowing the seeds of doubt, and that’s enough for now. 

“You seem different.”

“Do I?”

“Mm. Quieter. Is there something you want to tell me?”

His dad has never judged him for anything, not once, and he does want to tell him everything but he knows he can’t. It’d get him carted off to the asylum, and he’d rather die than get taken to that place. Instead, he just grins and says that he’s just tired, but he doesn’t think it looks too convincing, because his father just looks at him for a long moment and then nods, lapsing back into silence. 

The thought of trying to find someone that might know what the hell happened to make him relive all of this over again has gone through his mind about half a dozen times since he woke up that day, but the risk outweighs the benefits, and in the end he’s not sure that it matters. What’s the point of knowing why when he could be doing all he can to change as much as he can, to keep his family together? He’s just glad it’s now, when he can actually do something about it. 

He tries to avoid Grace as much as possible, but it’s a little hard when she seems to always be around, subtly listening to as many conversations as she can to take them back to her boss. Sometimes he catches her watching him, trying to figure out how he knows what he knows. She’s probably already read any files they have on him and found no connections that make sense, slowly being driven mad with the need to know how a fifteen year old boy had guessed the truth. 

“Where do you go, when you disappear for the day?”

“How do you know I’ve been going anywhere?”

She tries to backtrack, explaining that she means when he leaves the booth in the back of the pub, but he knows that she’s aware that she’s just tipped her hand and told him that she’s having him watched, either by herself or by someone else. He’s not surprised. If she dismissed him as not a threat, she’s dumber than he thought she was. 

“None of your business.”

“What do you know of the robbery?”

“What robbery?”

The guns are a problem, but he’s not sure how to deal with them. He’s not Tommy, he’s not the kind of person that has ever been able to come up with plans on a whim. Does he take them when no one is looking and leave them somewhere for the cops to find, or does he do something to make them look the other way, suspect someone else? 

“You ask a lot of questions for a horrible bar maid.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused.” 

He can feel Tommy watching them from the snug just off the bar, through the windows, but doesn’t turn to look at him. He refuses to act like he’s doing something wrong, like a little boy being caught around a girl he likes. What’s happening here couldn’t be further from the truth. For a second, when she looks at him with a faint look of defiance on her face, like she’s got the upper hand here, it reminds him of the Michael he’d left behind in the future that hasn’t happened yet. Not because they look alike, just because his Michael was always defiant. The difference is that he meant it, and she was just a child playing pretend. 

“I know exactly who you are, Grace. I know what you’re here to do, and I’ll kill you before you ever manage to get close enough to do it.” His father would probably be ashamed if he knew he was threatening a woman. “That’s a promise.” 

“You wouldn’t. Not without losing them.”

“I don’t think they’d cry too hard over a snitch.”

“Who are you?”

“Me? I’m nobody, just like you. Only difference is, people would care if I was found dead on the banks of the Cut.”


	6. Chapter 6

The solution to his problems, or at least the Grace problem, comes to him on night while he’s lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling unable to sleep. It’s a risky plan. He doesn’t know how to get into contact with the right people, first of all, but he knows people that will. It’ll take a bit of work to get the information out of them without giving away exactly why he wants it, but somehow, in his bones, he knows it’ll work. Men talk, when they’re drunk, and all it takes it a few seemingly innocent questions before he hears all he needs to know. 

He sends the letter the next morning. It’s a shot in the dark, that it’ll even reach the right person, but he has faith that it will. The letter, unsigned so he doesn’t give himself away so soon, tells the truth; everything about how he knows what’s going to happen in the next few years, and how he’s working to change it as much as he can. It’s the intrigue that’ll do the convincing, and not the money he’d tucked in between the pages, he knows. He makes sure to keep it vague, no clues about who’s written the letter so there won’t be any suspicion on the wrong people. It’s the riskiest thing he’s done so far, but he’s running out of options. He’d do it himself, but he can’t afford the suspicion on himself either.

“What did you do?”

“What are you talking about?”

He doesn’t expect to be there when it happens, or that it would happen in the middle of the day in the Garrison. 

“Tommy seems cold, these days.”

“Good.”

He hears the shattering of glass first, When he thinks back on it later, that’s the thing that sticks in his mind the most. The tinkling of it as it hit the floor, scattering into a thousand tiny pieces. If it wasn’t for the second glass that smashes when it drops out of Grace’s hand, he isn’t sure he would have noticed anything was wrong. At least until the bloom of red appears on the front of the blouse she’s wearing, before she drops to the floor. He hates her, with an intensity that’s only reserved for a very few individuals, but he’s not totally heartless so he follows her down and presses his hands against her chest. It’s an exercise in futility, but he tries anyway. She looks him in the eyes, confused, and must see something there that she recognises, because her face smooths over, and he knows that she knows this is his fault. 

“Why?”

“I had to save my family.”

By the time Harry comes up from the storeroom below the bar, she’s already dead, and Isaiah is standing next to the window, looking out to see if he can see where the shot came from. 

“What the fuck happened?”

“Sniper. Stay away from the windows, they could still be out there, waiting.”

When Harry’s got his back turned, busy on the phone to tell Tommy and the others what’s happened, he looks down at her. In a way, he hates that he’d been pushed to this to keep her away. Even if she was a manipulative bitch, he knows that Tommy had loved her even if she hadn’t deserved it. He’s not sorry that she’s gone, but he is sorry that he took that away from his boss. 

“Is she-”

“Yeah. Dead before she hit the floor.”

When he sees the pain in Tommy’s eyes, it’s almost enough to make him second guess himself, but he tells himself that this is easier than letting it get any further. A bit of pain to save him too much pain than he could handle down the road. No one stops him when he slips out the doors and walks home. Most likely because they think he’s grieving, in his own way, and he can’t be bothered to correct them. What would Tommy do to him, if he knew that Isaiah had been behind it? Nothing good, he’s sure. Especially because he didn’t have the guts to do it himself. 

His bedroom is still the same, when he walks up the stairs and through the door. Everything is the same as it was when he was older, but he’s alone in it, and it feels cold. He wonders what he’d do, what the two of them would do, if Michael had been thrown backwards in time with him. He never thought it was possible to miss someone that you saw three times a week, but he supposes it’s because there’s too many differences between now and then for him to be comfortable. It feels like there’s a heavy weight on his chest, when he sees that familiar smile, and has to turn away to stop himself from admitting everything. What would he even say? “You don’t know me, but I’m from the future, and I’ve loved you since the day I met you.” 

It takes three more days before he sees another familiar face pass him on the street, and it’s still just as strange as the day it had been when he’d seen John alive and well again. 

“You’re the one that sent the letter.”

Truthfully, he’s never spent that much time around the man, but he’s not entirely surprised that he’s been figured out. As far as he could tell, the older man had been unnaturally observant. 

“You realise that you sounded like you should be locked up in a padded cell somewhere.”

“I took a gamble, and you’re here, so it obviously paid off.”

“Does it happen like you said it does?”

“Do you swear never to tell anyone what the letter said?”

For a minute neither of them move, just staring at each other in the dark alley between the bakery and the old tailors, and then the man nods. 

“I’ll want something in return. Business, you understand.”

“If we agree that none of this ever happened, then I’ll be able to save your son’s life.”

Aberama grins at him, but it’s not cheerful or nice. It’s the snarl of a wolf just before they attack, warning you not to take a wrong step.

“Sounds like we have a deal.”


	7. Chapter 7

When he sleeps, which isn’t much these days, he dreams of Michael.

He’s not surprised about it. In his entire life, he’s never missed anyone so much, apart from when his dad went to join the war effort.

The last thing he’d been doing, that he remembers after that last bottle of gin, was laying in their bed, watching Michael reading by the lamplight, even though Michael hated when Isaiah watched him. It never goes further, at least not yet. He hasn’t asked why, figures that Michael will tell him about it when he’s ready. He’s careful to keep his hands above the waist, even though god knows it’s tempting to do something when he’s got Michael underneath him, relaxed and pliant. It was bad enough when he was older. Now he’s back in his younger body, with a younger and more impressionable version of the man he loves.

It’s a bad idea, to get between two men with knives, but he reacts before he thinks. Honestly, he’d completely forgotten about Danny’s episode that ends in a murder, he just happened to be around when he heard the familiar voice shouting. He can’t fault Danny for panicking when he realises what he’s done, but he also can’t help the way he snaps at him to shut the fuck up, holding a hand to his stomach. The Italian asshole just walks back inside his shop, ignoring everything that’s happening outside the windows, and for a second Isaiah wishes he’d just let it happen. 

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Hey, look at me. Go get help.”

Danny nods rapidly and hurries off, disappearing around a corner with a wary look back, and Isaiah sinks down to the ground with a bitten-off groan. Closing his eyes isn’t a conscious decision, but the next thing he’s aware of are John and Arthur dragging him into the hospital, shouting for a nurse, and everything hurts. Everything sounds like it’s far away, muffled in his ears when they talk to him, he assumes, before he coughs and it tastes like copper thick on his tongue, then the world fades out again. They must get him to a bed, because he can feel the bandages tight around his middle when he’s alert enough to figure out where he is. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I was in the city, happened to see the trouble.”

“And you didn’t help me? Cold, Henry.” The name is awkward in his mouth, not right, but he refuses to be the one that tells Michael who he really is. Everything is already fucked up, he’s not going to mess that one up too. “Didn’t think I made that much of an impression.”

“Me either.”

Michael doesn’t look at him. He stares out the window instead, not that there’s much there to look at. Just the same dirty city that Isaiah’s known all his life. In his opinion, the village Michael comes from is better, but they’ll have enough arguments about that in a few years. Michael will look at him like he’s insane and laugh, asking him if he hit his head when Michael wasn’t looking, and Isaiah will just grin at him. 

“What did the doctors say?”

“Missed everything vital, you’re lucky.”

“Right, lucky.” 

It hurts to turn his head, for reasons that he’ll figure out later, but he does it anyway and looks at the man sitting in the chair next to the hospital bed they’ve got him in. Michael looks tense. There’s no outward signs, but Isaiah can read the little clues in the way he curls his fingers too tight around the arms of the chair, and blinks too fast. 

“Why are you here?”

“You’re hurt.”

“Look, I appreciate the thought, but you barely know me.”

Not yet, anyway. In a few years, if things go right, he’ll be the person that knows Isaiah better than anyone, including his father. Now, though, he’s just a boy that Isaiah has seemingly met on a trip to get some time alone, though that was just the first time. He’s been back about twice a week for the past three months since then.

“You’re not allowed to die on me. Alright? I forbid it.”

“You forbid it?”

“Yes.”

He almost laughs, but bites it back at the last second, so all he does it a weird huff out his nose. 

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here. Why do you care whether or not I get hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I can’t figure it out.”

“Oh, you can’t figure it out.”

“Stop copying me.” Michael turns and looks at him, for the first time, and he’s angry now but it can’t hide the faint glimmer of tears in his eyes. Not enough to fall, just enough to catch on his eyelashes. “I’m being serious.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you baby, but you don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do.” 

That’s a blatant lie, he’d do anything Michael asked, but the other man doesn’t need to know that. Not when he doesn’t even know he really is. 

“You’re infuriating.”

“I know.”

It’s not a kiss, not really, more of a collision. It’s nothing like the ones he remembers, either. There’s no experience in it, no finesse, just rough movements and clashing teeth. He’ll take it, anyway. It hurts even more to lift his arms than it did to turn his neck, but he pushes the pain away in favour of getting his hands curled in the white shirt Michael’s wearing and pulling him in, sitting up as much as he can at the same time. 

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Up this close, all he can see is Michael’s eyes looking into his, practically nose to nose in the dark room. The only light in the room is the dim lamp in the corner, but it’s enough to see by. Enough to see the flush on his boy’s face, at least. 

“I can tell. I can teach you, if you want.” The flush gets darker when he winks, and he has to bring a hand up and feel it, hot underneath the skin. Michael grabs his hand, and if anyone were to walk in and see them, it’d be impossible to hide what’s really happening here.

“I hate you.”

It’s easy enough to read the real meaning underneath the words, mumbled into his lips when he darts forward to kiss him, then again, and again. There’s similarities, between this Michael and the one he remembers, and the aversion to saying what he really feels is still the same. 

“I know.”

“Isaiah?” 

He doesn’t shut his eyes and scream, but it’s extremely tempting, when Michael jumps back like he’s been burned and turns to Tommy standing in the doorway, Danny lurking just behind him with an apologetic look on his face, holding his hat in his hands. 

“Sorry, Isaiah, but he insisted.”

“Fuck.”


	8. Chapter 8

The doctors come to see him, after Michael and Tommy leave, and tell him that they’re keeping him in for the next week, just to monitor him for infection and keep an eye on the stitches. There’s no point in arguing with them. If his dad hears that he didn’t listen, he’d have his head, so he stays even though he doesn’t want to. Apart from his dad, and Finn with him, no one else comes to see him. Whether they’re staying away because they’ve decided he’s a liability and kicked him out, or because they’re all still trying to come to terms with their lost cousin showing up out of nowhere, he isn’t sure. Finn looks at him with big eyes, when he visits for the first time, and doesn’t say anything about Michael, so that’s either a bad sign, or Finn just doesn’t know because he’s too young for them to tell him anything. He doesn’t say anything about a cousin, either, not that Isaiah asks. 

Danny comes in, once or twice, with his wife and kids. He looks ashamed at himself, for stabbing him, no matter how many times Isaiah tells him that it doesn’t matter, that it was an accident. Rosie and the kids bring flowers, and a whole bunch of handmade cards that are pretty much unreadable but still make him smile. He keeps the cards in the little cupboard beside the bed, and takes them home with him when they finally let him leave. Seeing Tommy waiting outside the hospital for him on the day they let him go isn’t a surprise. They’ve got an overdue talk they need to have, about everything. 

Isaiah could take a lot of things, being stabbed now on the top of that list, but the look Michael gives him from across the table in Polly’s kitchen hurts far worse than anything else ever has. Tommy had pretty much marched him into the house and sat him down, insisting in the voice that no one would dare disobey that he’s just as much involved as the rest of the family. Well, Polly and Ada might disobey, but Isaiah wouldn’t even think about it, especially with the way Michael carefully avoids his eyes. 

“I think we all want to know how exactly it was that you happened to find him,” Tommy says, inclining his head towards Michael but not taking his eyes off Isaiah. Because it is Michael sitting at the other end of the table, one that looks almost exactly like Isaiah remembers, not the way he’d looked when he was Henry. There’s a familiar blank look on his face, and the usual glimmer of anger in his eyes. “Why you always seem to be around when something big happens. Grace, then Danny, now this.”

“I’m not a fucking snitch, if that’s what you mean. I’d never do that to any of you. You’re family, helped look after me during the war. Even without all that, I’d never.”

“You knew who I was, and you never told me. The entire time, you kept that from me.”

Michael still doesn’t look at him, and for the moment, Isaiah doesn’t focus on it. He’ll fix that later, somehow, now’s not the time. 

“You’re practically my brothers, you think I’d do anything to hurt any of you? If you do, then you don’t know me at all, Tommy.”

“I’m not so sure that I do. The boy I remember wouldn’t have done deals with Aberama Gold.” 

“Get out.”

“What?” Everyone turns to look at Polly, who crosses her arms and stares right back, unwavering. “Leave. I’ll get him to tell me the truth, and if it’s not good, then I’ll let you all know. You can trust me,” she says, directed at Tommy this time, and after a long silent minute, he nods. 

“We’ll be right outside.”

It takes a few minutes for everyone to shuffle out, throwing unsure looks back at him and Polly. Everyone except Michael, who stays where he is. When Polly turns to tell him she means him too, he shakes his head firmly.

“I deserve to hear this too, mum.”

When was the last time he heard Michael call her that? Too long, he thinks. Polly relents, like Isaiah knew she would, and shuts and locks the door behind everyone else. 

“Start talking, Isaiah, it’s the only thing that’s going to stop those boys out there from killing you. The truth, this time. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

Now, Michael looks at him, and the anger is gone from his eyes. Now, there’s just sadness, which is worse. 

“I’m trying to save you all,” is what he says, instead of saying what he wants to Michael. “I can’t tell you the details, Pol, but please, you have to trust me. I know what’s going to happen, and it’s not good. None of it. I’m trying to stop it all, but I can’t do that if I’m dead. You know I’m telling the truth, I know you do. I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

Narrowing her eyes for a second, she studies him. Then, finally, she speaks. “Where are you really from?”

“What?”

“I might be getting old, boy, but I’m not stupid. You’re not our Isaiah, a simpleton could see that. Where are you from?”

“A different time than this one.”

It’s as close to telling her everything as he can get, without details. He would tell her, but he can’t take the risk of that ruining everything, or changing them in ways that he can’t predict. 

“That’s how you knew how to find me.”

“Yes.”

“Who am I to you?”

“Everything.”

He doesn’t notice Polly get up, too occupied with looking at Michael, who finally meets his eyes. He notices when she opens the door, and tells them that they can come in, but they better not do anything because he’s done nothing wrong and isn’t a snitch at all. By the look on Tommy’s face, he’s not satisfied, but he lets it rest. 

For now, at least.


	9. Chapter 9

“Garrison,” Arthur announces, as soon as he steps back into the room, and John immediately agrees, then looks over at Isaiah and declares that he’s coming too. It’s a thinly veiled attempt to get him alone, but he plays along, and tells everyone else he’ll see them later. They don’t talk on the way. It’d be impossible to miss the way they box him in on each side, like they’re trying to stop him from running, as if he would. He’s many things, but he’s not a coward, and if they’ve been given the order to get rid of him then he’s going to face it head on. 

“Three pints, Harry,” John says, before he disappears into the snug, and Arthur nudges Isaiah behind him. It feels a little like they’ve got him trapped, when they shut the doors. “So-”

“You a psychic or something? Hey, does that mean we can ask you what happens in the future? Does Arthur ever find a woman?”

Arthur swats John on the back of the head, and Isaiah grins when John almost spills his beer, cursing back at his older brother. It’s familiar, something that he’s seen countless times before, and he starts to relax and drinks his own beer. He feels like a fool, now, for doubting them, but he can’t really blame them for reacting suspiciously. He’d have done the same thing, in their position. 

He’s not sure what several people knowing about it will do, if it’ll make things happen that he can’t change because he doesn’t see them coming, but he’s resolute in his decision not to tell them any details about any of it. After a long while of planning, he’d finally figured out what he’s going to do, but he’s determined to keep his promise to himself about not telling them any details. He only knows how everything happens if everything keeps, more or less, moving in the same direction. Telling them runs the risk of the whole thing changing, and he can’t protect anyone against something he can’t see coming. 

The absence of Tommy isn’t a subtle one, and Isaiah knows he’s back at the house with Michael and Polly, giving them their own interrogation about what exactly the hell is going on, but he trusts Polly to keep it to herself. When the war happened, and there was no one to look after him because his mother had died years before and his father was one of the men to go and fight, Polly and Ada had looked after him, just like they did Finn. He’ll always be grateful for them for it, both of them, and wouldn’t do a thing to hurt either of them. 

John’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts.

“Are you really psychic?”

“Yeah, let’s go with that. I’m psychic, I can tell what’s going to happen before it does.” 

John looks like he’s just won the lottery. 

“So you know when we’re going to die.” John means it as a joke, he’s sure of it, but it wipes the smile off Isaiah’s face, and John frowns. “Wait-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” 

They both frown at him, then, but eventually let it go. Somehow, he ends up watching the two of them have a drinking contest, which ends about as well as he’d expect. 

**

He’s not entirely surprised, after he gets back from the awkward interrogation by Arthur and John at the Garrison before they deemed him alright, to walk into his bedroom and find Michael sitting on his bed. For a second, until Michael turns to look at him, it looks like something that might have happened before this whole mess started, but the face that stares back at him is younger than he remembers. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Were we together? In wherever it is that you come from.”

Suddenly, he’s too tired to deal with any more questions, and pulls off his tie and jacket, draping them carefully over the worn wooden chair in the corner of the room. He shuts the door, quietly, so he doesn’t disturb his father, and debates whether or not he should sit on the bed or just stay standing. 

“Can we not do this? I get it, you’ve got questions, but-”

“I told you about what happened to me.”

“No. I’ve got some idea, but I figured when you were ready to tell me, you would. I haven’t asked. Some of the less traumatic parts, you’ve told me, but that’s as far as it went.” Sit it is, apparently, because Michael doesn’t look like he has any plans to leave any time soon, and he’s tired and sore. Getting stabbed would do that, he thinks, now he knows. “Do you want to stay the night?”

After a minute of staring at him, Michael nods, and takes the side of the bed closest to the window. He keeps his back turned, too painful to lay on the side with the stitches, and if he knows anything about Michael, he knows that he doesn’t like people looking at him when he’s vulnerable. If there’s ever such a time, it’s probably now. He doesn’t say anything when he feels Michael roll over, shuffling forward until his chest is pressed along Isaiah’s back.

“I wouldn’t tell anyone that I didn’t trust. Not even the less traumatic parts.”

“Good thing you trusted me then. More than anyone else, according to you. Well, my version of you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You can’t tell someone else that they love you.”


	10. Chapter 10

The bouquet of flowers show up on a Wednesday, and he stares at them sitting on the kitchen table, unsure why there’s flowers in the house at all, never mind who they’re from. He has a pretty good idea who sent them, but not why. Scratch that, he knows exactly who they’re from, because there’s only one person he knows who’d even think to send him flowers, of all things. It’d been a running joke between them, before, something that apparently still exists now. They’ve got no vases in the house, not since his mother died, but it’s easy enough to find a stray bucket and fill it with water, at least until he can find something better. For a second, he thinks about throwing them away, but knows that Michael would know, and get the wrong idea. He assumes they were delivered, probably by some poor soul that had no idea what they were really delivering, which is why he jumps a little when he opens his bedroom door and Michael is standing near the window, looking out the dirty glass at the city behind it while the sun goes down. 

It was a strange few months, watching Michael slowly get used to the family he’d had but never knew, and he’s made sure to keep his distance, not push. It’s a delicate situation, he knows that, even without the added confusion of finding out that the boy you’ve been talking to for the last three months is from almost a decade into the future, and in love with you. They still haven’t talked about the trauma, even though at this point Isaiah has put enough of the pieces together that he knows what had happened. It exists between them like a void, one that neither of them were willing to cross. Until now, apparently, based on the way that Michael looks at him when he turns around. 

“Happy birthday.”

His last one had been not long after he’d gone to see Michael for the first time. He hadn’t said anything, just let it pass like any normal day, because he’d had other things to focus on and because he’d never been comfortable with too many people paying attention to him so a birthday party had been out of the question. Still, he had his own traditions with his dad, and the usual drinks at the bar with John, Arthur and a few of the other boys, and that was enough. Michael had been noticeably absent, but he’d figured it was because he was helping Polly deal with the aftermath of Tommy’s trip to the hospital, not because he’s been in Isaiah’s house, waiting. 

“What are you doing here?” He knows exactly why. Even though he’s made it a point to keep himself away from going any further than kissing, because they haven’t talked about whatever’s caused Michael’s aversion, he hasn’t missed the way Michael looks disappointed and a little mad when he pulls away and stops. “Polly know you’re spending the night?”

“Was her idea, actually, she says I need to get out of the house for a while.”

**

“You ready for the main event?”

Michael snapped his eyes up to Isaiah’s face. “What?” he asked intelligently. In his defense, it was hard to think with all of his blood going south. 

“I mean, are you ready to learn what it feels like to not be a virgin anymore?” The very thought made Michael a bit dizzy, but the upside of the current situation was that it was hard to be shy or embarrassed now, so he sucked in an unsteady breath and nodded.

“I can’t hear you, babe.”

Gathering up his, admittedly limited, brain power until he found a proper glare, he did his best to look menacing even though he was pretty sure that his blush had spread down onto his chest. “Yes! Yes, fuck, is that what you want to hear, you great bloody basta-!” His attempt at anger was ruined completely, washing right out of his mind, as Isaiah smoothly raised himself up, and then when he lowered himself down again. It was like nothing Michael had ever experienced or even imagined before; he had no experience with any of this. It was also so pleasurable that he momentarily forgot how to talk. Eyes closing and head rocking back, he felt it as Isaiah pushed smoothly and steadily down. Squeezed from every angle, it was reflex to claw at the bed, as if to try and ground himself. Isaiah grabbed one of his arms at the wrist, pinning it to the bed by his knee, and Michael saw no reason in the entire universe to fight it.

At least, until the knock at the door.

“Isaiah, you in there?”

Michael can’t move, not with Isaiah’s weight on his hips, so all he can do is lay there, terrified that the door is going to open and his boyfriend’s father is going to see them doing something that no parent should ever see their child doing. 

“I’m a- fuck, stop moving! I’m just getting ready for bed.” Isaiah hisses down at Michael and goes back to trying to regulate his voice, so his dad won’t think anything is out of the ordinary and open the door. “Do you need something?”

“I’m cooking something for dinner, just wanted to know if you were hungry.”

“No, I ate at the Garrison, but I’ll be down soon, might start on some bread or something for tomorrow.”

There’s a pause from outside the door, and for a second, he thinks that it’s worked and his dad has gone back downstairs.

“What about Michael, is he staying for dinner?”

Isaiah doesn’t snort, but it’s a near thing, especially when Michael stammers “Y-yeah, that’d be great, thanks!” in a high pitched voice, punching Isaiah in the shoulder when he slaps a hand over his mouth to keep the laughter in. 

“Don’t be long, boys, food’ll get cold.”


End file.
